Chemical Education Today

Letters
Determination of the Number
of Operations for a Point Group
from Only Its Name
Symmetry is extremely important in chemistry, particularly in the areas of crystallography and spectroscopy. Consequently, point group symmetry is usually taught within the
first few years of a graduate program of study. Consideration
of symmetry elements and operations leads to point groups
and then an understanding of character tables. The identification of all of the operations in a point group is a typical
exercise at this stage. A common difficulty with this problem is that students will often miss an operation or group of
operations, particularly the improper rotations which are
more difficult to identify. However, knowledge of the total
number of operations in a point group allows an easy check
that all of the operations have been found.
I developed the following simple method to determine
the number of operations from only the point group name;
the method does not appear in textbooks (at least those available to me) and so is either unknown to the chemistry com-

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Journal of Chemical Education

munity or has been lost. The method involves the following three steps:
1. Assign 1 for C or S, 2 for D, 12 for T, 24 for O, or 60 for I.
2. Multiply by n for any numerical subscript.
3. Multiply by 2 for any letter subscript label (s, v, d, h, i ).

For example: D5h has 2 5 2 20 operations; C3v has 1

3 2 6 operations; and Oh has 24 2 48 operations.
Note that the method correctly predicts that the linear point
groups Cv and Dh will each have an infinite number of operations.
If you arent so concerned with the S, T, O and I point
groups, the method is especially simple to remember. I should
also add that it is not just the students who find this a useful
tool!
Owen J. Curnow
Department of Chemistry
University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand
owen.curnow@canterbury.ac.nz

Vol. 84 No. 9 September 2007

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